Future Tense
by Kraven Ergeist
Summary: Years have passed. Ichigo and his friends are now adults, living in an adult world. Has the fighting finally come to an end? Has the time come for Ichigo to hang up his sword? Either way, Ichigo and his friends still have some problems left to face.


**Bleach Fan Fiction**

**Future Tense**

By Kraven Ergeist

* * *

So far, Ichigo had learned two things by signing onto (read: "indoctrinated," "shanghai'ed," "and forced into") residential nursing at the Karakura University Medical Center.

One: that almost none of what he learned in high school, and subsequently, most of college, even applied to what it took to get things done in the real world at a post-graduate level. Most of what he had picked up in his day-to-day routine growing up, simply by living his life and having to help support his family, is what contributed to the skills he currently boasted as the KUMC Intensive Care Unit's latest male nurse.

And two: that the world of businesses ran on paperwork. The majority of his job involved typing, penning, signing, faxing, emailing, and very often texting his coworkers and employees from other departments, and especially his superiors and his superior's superiors, and so forth and so on. Every minute thing that happened, every patient out-transfer, every schedule and reschedule, every prescription, every delivery, every receipt had to be signed, dated, and forwarded to practically everyone else in his department. While Ichigo understood, at some level, that such record keeping was a necessity to keep such a big engine that was a citywide hospital functioning at its peak, he still found the labor-intensive busy work mind-numbingly boring.

Though granted, a position within the Gotei 13 probably consisted of just as much paperwork, if Hitsugaya was to be believed. If a hospital required this much red tape, he couldn't imagine what an army/police force would involve.

Ichigo sighed, as he waved goodbye to the office secretary on the way out, who smiled sweetly and noncommittally back to him. What was her name? Miyako? Mayuki? It seemed as though there was a different girl there every week. Since graduating, he had been hard pressed to find a job that he actually wanted. Having grown up working in his dad's hospital, he was most comfortable in that sort of setting. He would have continued working there, except his old man just wasn't bringing in the cash these days to support both him and his sisters. That left Ichigo with very few options, and when his dad had suggested that he maybe apply to the University Medical Center, Ichigo had just shrugged and said "Why not?"

Now, he was a regular pencil pusher. Ichigo had wanted nothing more than a normal life all these years – every one of his battles, everything he'd ever fought for up to this point, the ending goal after protecting every single one of his friends and family had been for this purpose. And now he had it, and nothing could have been harder. This was the life he had signed on for, he told himself. This was what he had chosen. It may not have been what his father would have chosen for him…

Or his sisters…

Or his friends…

Or Urahara…

Or the rest of Soul Society…

But this was the life he had chosen, and he was sticking to it. He had his pride after all.

As Ichigo marched home from the hospital, he spotted a six-foot-five-inch figure in a blue jumpsuit and a hard hat, a lunch box dangling from his hand

"Oi, Chad," Ichigo waved at the big lumbering hulk that was his friend.

Sado Yasutora, long having accepted Ichigo's nickname for him, turned and smiled.

"Ichigo…it's good to see you. How are you?"

Ichigo grinned. He still had his shaggy orange hair, but it was trimmed down just a little, to make him look a little more professional. He was wearing a dress shirt and tie over brown slacks and dress shoes, all of which spent most of the day in his locker as he wore nurse's scrubs for most of the day. Chad, on the other hand, had been working at a construction company since graduating high school. He preferred working with his hands, so he claimed, and his company had been fixing up a lot of the damage caused by Aizen's little traverse through Karakura.

"Same old, same old…" Ichigo admitted.

While he was loathe to admit it, the repetition of the day at the hospital was really wearing on him. Sometimes, he would just stare at the clock and beg for it to speed up. While sending reports and delivering scripts and processing patient transfers was worlds easier than trying to best other-worldly warriors from beyond the grave, it made up for it by being totally lacking in flare.

The sun had already gone down by the time he and Chad had made it to the bar – a small, quiet place on the way home from work. It also happened to be where an old friend was currently working to pay off her school loans.

"Welcome to - Ichigo!" Tatsuki's eyes widened, mid-bow. "And Sado-kun! H-how are you guys doing?"

Ichigo waved and smile. If he wasn't so distracted by his own foul mood, he might have noticed Tatsuki's blush as she tried to tug her waitress skirt down to cover the bare minimum amount of thigh that it did. This wasn't their first visit to this establishment, but Tatsuki never felt comfortable wearing this outfit in front of either of them, especially Ichigo.

Though she did notice tonight that Ichigo seemed a little more distant than usual.

"The usual, fellas?" Tatsuki offered as the two of them sat at a table.

Chad nodded, though Ichigo barely seemed to register the question. Chad didn't say anything until Tatsuki had placed a bottle and saucer of sake in front of Ichigo, and poured a bottle of Sapporo into a chilled glass for Chad.

"So Ichigo…" Chad said, picking up his glass. "Are you going to tell me what's on your mind?"

Ichigo winced slightly. He was already pouring his sake and didn't otherwise respond to Chad until he had downed the entire serving.

"Ughhh…" Ichigo groaned slightly. Drinking wasn't something he had particularly enjoyed transitioning to, but it was one of the few acceptable ways for grown men to socialize in Japan. He couldn't exactly hang out at the mall or the video arcade anymore, and the café's were filled with teenagers that he no longer related to.

"Just feeling a little restless…" Ichigo offered.

Chad frowned. He was one of Ichigo's closest friends, and yet he still could not fully open to him. Chad wondered if Ichigo ever truly opened to anyone.

"Maybe some physical activity will get your mind off things," Chad offered, seemingly at a loss for words. "Do you want to go hiking or something this weekend?"

Ichigo shook his head. "I don't think that's what I need…"

Chad nodded. He had known all along what Ichigo was thinking of, and while a part of him still yearned to be fighting hollows and other horrors not of this earth, that didn't change the fact that they were invariably rooted to their lives now. They couldn't just take off for days at a time, and even if they wanted to only spend an evening hunting for hollows…

"You know it's been years since the last reported hollow incident…" Chad sipped his beer.

"I know…" Ichigo said, sounding frustrated. He poured himself another drink and swallowed it, barely tasting it. It had been five years since Aizen's defeat, four since the Full Bringers, then later the Bloody Stalkers, the Getbackers, the Soul Society Shinsengumi, the Battle of the Five Planes, and then…

Ichigo stared at his hand. He had fought more battles than he cared to count. He had achieved such a degree of power, that if he'd wanted to, he could have leveled this entire town in matter of minutes.

And what was he doing? How was he helping the world? By training to be a nurse practitioner.

Ichigo downed another drink. This was the life he'd chosen, damn it! And it wasn't just that – the hollow activity around Karakura had been reduced to zero after the last incident. It was as if the spiritual bond that Karakura shared with the worlds of Soul Society and Hueco Mundo and all the other dimensions became somehow severed. The last time they had travelled the Senkaimon back to Earth, they had to make detour through Shinjuku just to get around it.

Karakura just didn't need a substitute Shinigami anymore.

That hadn't stopped Yamamoto from offering to enroll him in the Gotei 13.

Ichigo set his glass down. "Damn it…what's it all for anymore?"

Chad looked up for his drink. "Hmm?"

Ichigo was looking at his hands. "I mean…are we even doing any worthwhile anymore? Now that we're not fighting all the time…I feel like I'm just wasting my life…"

Chad's mouth opened slightly. "Ichigo…?"

Ichigo's cheeks were flushed. Chad had never seen his friend like this before. Usually, Ichigo was the one brimming with positive energy and hope for the future. He wasn't used to seeing Ichigo…doubt himself before.

Tatsuki was looking at them from across the bar. She wanted to go over and see what had Ichigo so down, but her boss had yelled at her the last time she had dawdled with the two of them. She needed this job.

When she saw Ishida come in though, she became suspicious. When was the last time these three had convened, she wondered?

"Welcome, Ishida-kun," Tatsuki greeted politely. "Ichigo and Sado-kun are right over there, if you'd like to sit with them."

Uryu had a prim white suit jacket over a black button down, and a gray striped tie. His silver rimmed glasses and silver watch hinted at his success at climbing the ladder at Yajima Inc., having earned the position of CFO, complete with company car. The last time Ishida had seen Ichigo, the substitute Shinigami had been half dead, his hair somehow having grown down to his waist, his sword an impossibly long, jagged black thing held in a bandaged hand, his wrists, shoulders and legs completely bound up with Full Bringer bracers, and a broken hollow mask on his face, a single, long, protruding horn pointing forward.

Now…

"Ichigo…" Ishida said as he approached the table. "Sado…"

Ichigo looked genuinely surprised. "Ishida! What are you doing here?"

Ishida frowned. Ichigo had long ago mastered the ability to sense reiatsu, and it was not like Uryu was trying to hide his presence. Ichigo should have felt him enter…so why didn't he?

Ishida contemplated the mostly empty bottle of sake in front of Ichigo.

"We need to talk," Uryu said simply, looking from Ichigo to Chad. "Both of you."

Chad gestured to one of the chairs. "Well then, by all means - have a seat."

Ishida shook his head. "Not here. Somewhere private."

Ichigo and Chad exchanged a look and both nodded.

Leaving a fistful of notes, the two of them stood up and mutely followed Ishida as he hurriedly made his way towards the exit. Tatsuki, still held up with other customers, watched them depart, with a worried look on her face. Ichigo spared her a wave and a smile, but it was mechanical, done out of politeness, not out of any concern. Still, she supposed it was a good sign that did so at all.

Now if only she could follow them…

"Oy, Arisawa!" came a yell from behind the counter. "The drinks are piling up back here! Get a move on!"

Tatsuki gnashed her teeth together as she ran back behind the counter to get the next order. "Yes sir…" she muttered through clenched teeth.

One of these days, she swore…one of these days, she'd figure out what Ichigo and his friends were always up to.

xxxxx

Ichigo and Chad followed Ishida as he meandered the city streets, none of them saying a word as they hurried along. He made his way to an empty parking lot, the streetlamps overhead flickering as moths fluttered around them. The moon arced the sky like a huge, looming smile.

"Ok, Ishida," Ichigo said, all business. "What's this all about?"

Ishida fixed the two of them with an incredulous look. "Really? Don't you two feel it?"

Ichigo's tongue caught in his throat. Next to him, he vaguely noticed Chad straightening. His mouth had gone dry. He had no idea what Ishida was talking about…but if he knew the Quincy, he knew that words like that rarely boded well.

"What…are you talking about…?" Ichigo's eyes were wide. Already, he could feel his body automatically shifting into a battle ready stance. Six years of training didn't just go away, and his reiatsu sense began to expand to try to take in his surroundings.

"Ishida…" Chad muttered, eyes hidden beneath his mop of chocolate hair. "You mean to tell us…?"

Uryu adjusted his glasses and pointed at the sky. "See for yourselves…"

The two of them stared up at the sky. It was pitch black, with only the pristine white moon to cast its light. It seemed rather large tonight, but there was still something…menacing about the way the moon looked.

And that's when they noticed.

"That's…that's not the moon!"

Beneath the trees glimmered a smaller, less menacing moon. Their _real_ moon. The white thing in the sky that they were staring at was much larger…much, much larger. It was an eerie ghost white, glowing an almost sickening color.

And as Ichigo stared even closer, he realized something else.

This other moon - this thing that looked like a moon – was getting larger.

No, he realized. It wasn't getting larger; it was getting _closer_.

"Ishida…" Ichigo stammered. "What…_is _that…?"

Ishida adjusted his glasses again. "That…" he pointed at the demonic orb in the sky. "…is a Hollow."

xxxxx

"How much time do we have?"

Between the three of them, the combined power of Ichigo, Ishida and Chad were comparable to that of a small nuke. Chad's armor had since expanded to cover most of his body, the black of his right arm and white of his left mixing together along his spine, running all the way down his body, leaving only his head exposed – and even then, if he chose, he could materialize a black crowned, paladin-style helm to cover his head.

Ishida wore his traditional white robes, with an added flare of blue and yellow thrown in. On his arm, a long white bow that was bound to his wrist, stemming from the silver wristwatch on his arm. Extending from his arm was a slim white shaft that ended in a second, shorter bow. It slightly resembled a crossbow and functioned largely the same. The two bows could be used alternatively, or combined to deliver a single, devastating reiatsu arrow that punched with the spiritual power equivalent of a 50-caliber bullet.

Around Ichigo's neck was a beaded necklace with a modified Shinigami badge made by Urahara. It allowed his gigai and his soul to fuse into one, eliminating the need for a mod soul. Ichigo's robe was a simple, lean black number, with thin white trim along the border. Instead of straw sandals, his feet were covered by Full Bringer greaves, as well as bracers on his wrists. His Zanpakuto, Tensa Zangetsu, was now permanently in Bankai mode, its hilt oversized, its chain fastened to a tiny joist built into his right bracer, allowing it to be thrown and drawn back. At a moment's notice, he could summon a fully horned hollow mask, which had a tendency to cause his hair to grow down to his waist every time it appeared, and shrink back when it went away.

And even then, he would still have yet to summon his hellfire armor.

"I predict that it will hit the Earth in about one hour," Ishida shouted across at the others as the wind whipped past their faces.

Indeed, the three of them had survived many battles, and were not ones to take such threats sitting down. Much of what had gotten them as far as they were now was their tenacious tendency to rise to such affronts.

In this case, the action was quite literal.

"How could this have happened?" Chad asked, his voice barely audible as the three of them soared upward. They each manipulated reiatsu in a different way, but each of them was able to force the reiatsu beneath them downward with enough control to push their bodies upward. Still, it was a long way to go.

"I imagine it being in space had something to do with its reiatsu being hidden until now," Ishida surmised. "Of course, normal humans won't be able to see it at all. But since Karakura's connection to the other worlds has been cut off, I imagine it had nowhere else to manifest."

Ichido was staring up at the giant white faux moon. Its surface seemed to be writhing as the distinct outlines of what appeared to be…was that a face?

"What the hell is this thing?" Ichigo asked out loud, clutching his Zanpakuto tightly.

"Thousands – hundreds of thousands – of Hollows, fused into one," Ishida surmised, keeping pace with the others as they flew.

"Is it…conscious?" Chad wondered.

As if to answer, the gigantic moon-Hollow's eyes began to open.

"HOLY-"

Its eyes were the color of blood, with what appeared to be massive veins running across the whites. As its eyes seemed to focus on the three approaching adversaries, suddenly its mouth also began to open. Slowly, as matter a hundred thousand miles across began to shift and twist into a huge, freakishly large, toothy smile. Its teeth were comprised of hundreds of Hollows each, their individual bodies smashed and fused together to form a pale, skeletal mask of terror as the giant, ghastly, moon-sized head stared down at them.

Its teeth began to part, and all at once, a billion tons of air became displaced by the movement of its jaw. Suddenly, it didn't require so much reiatsu to fly towards it. In fact, they seemed to be drawn towards it…

"It's sucking us in!" Ishida suddenly realized, reversing the direction of his reiatsu as he attempted to resist the pull.

Ichigo and Chad followed suit, forcing their bodies back down to earth. But the creature had already become so massive, that it looked larger than the ground beneath them now. Its blood red eyes focused in on them, its menacing grin gaping wide to swallow them all whole.

That's when a tiny point within the black empty pit of its gaping, gnashing jaw began to glow a bright, distinct shade of green.

Color drained from Ichigo's face.

"CERO!"

Without thinking, Chad materialized his helm and slammed his fists together, pointing forward, thumbs and forefingers jammed together. In front of both fists, a massive ball of black and white energy began to swirl and merge together in a vaguely yin yang shape.

Ishida responded in kind, knocking three Seele Schneiders into both his bowstrings, drawing them back as tightly as possible. Both strings began to glow blue as Reiatsu began to channel into them, charging up the thin metal rods with enough energy to rise past the second bow's length, and farther still as energy collected.

Ichigo donned his horned Hollow mask with the wave of a hand, his hair growing out to waist length within moments. He drew his Zanpakuto forward as if he were about to summon his Bankai, despite it already being out.

"Getsuga…" he rasped inhumanly through the skeletal horned jaws of his Vizard's mask, as his Zanpakuto began to bathe itself in an eerie, black energy, pale red electricity crackling about its hilt. The energy seemed to wreath the blade, extending out past its already elongated tip, increasing the apparent size of the sword in both length as well as width.

All the while, the green glow within the giant Hollow's mouth began to increase, the suction of air still pulling them in as its jaw widened. Each of them felt the immense power of the Cero that this creature was about to unleash. It wouldn't just destroy each of them; it would travel all the way to the surface and utterly destroy Karakura Town and most of the surrounding city, blasting a crater in the Earth so massive, a small mountain would fit in the whole it created.

They had to stop this thing, now!

"TENSHOU!" Ichigo shouted as his power began to increase past his ability to contain it. With his shout, he waved his Zanpakuto once around his head, releasing an enormous pillar of black energy rippled with red electricity.

As he released his attack, both Ishida and Chad released theirs as well, Ishida's three Seele Schneider's solidifying into a single white-hot blast of reiatsu, and Chad's black and white typhoon of unstable power erupted and blasted forward. The three attacks seemed to merge into one, single devastating blast of pure energy, the best that Earth had to offer to stave off this unholy menace.

The burgeoning green Cero and the tumultuous mash of multi-layered reiatsu collided in a bright blast of light that was impossible to stare down. The blinding explosion threw each of them back – down – as the energy erupted within the giant grinning hollow's mouth spilled out between its teeth, and soon its nose and eyes began to glow and bulge as tiny cracks appeared between the hollow bodies that made it. Its entire face began to swell, as a mixture of Hollow, Quincy, Shinigami, Vizard and Fullbringer reiatsu reacted and exploded, creating an enormous eruption of energy that was too much for the massive Hollow to sustain.

With a howl of horror, rage and anguish, the massive skeletal face began to expand and break apart in the explosion, the shockwave still carrying Ichigo and the others away as the creature broke apart. Its jaw broke into two pieces, the bones that made up its face breaking apart, and disintegrating further still. Its individual Hollow components shriveling up and crumbling into dust as they blew apart into nothingness.

The three of them must have fallen for miles before Ichigo, Ishida and Chad finally regained control of their altitude, righting themselves and sustaining their flight with a push of reiatsu. The three fighters watched in morbid fascination as the amalgamation of a hundred thousand hollows that was the giant, moon-sized face that nearly wiped out everything they knew, withered away to burn up in the atmosphere.

They were each gasping for breath. They had each put as much as they could into each of their attacks, and it had been over a year since any of them had seen real combat. Still, if evidence showed, they had still been equal to the task of defending Karakura from Hueco Mundo yet again.

The question was…why had the attack come at all? And how? Hueco Mundo should have been all but barren of any activity.

"What…the hell…?" Ichigo breathed, disbelief in his voice.

"How could so many Hollows have banded together for such a single-minded assault?" Chad asked. "And from where? There shouldn't even _be_ that many active Hollows anymore!"

"This will not be an isolated incident," Ishida inferred, his bow withdrawing into his silver wristwatch. "This was just a first strike. I think we can expect to see similar such attacks in the future."

Ishida's eyes turned very, very dark.

"This…was an act of war…"

That was all he got out before a wave of nausea hit each of them individually. All of the sudden, they couldn't move. Couldn't even blink. It was if time itself had stopped.

"…Nnnnng…" Ichigo managed to choke out, but the air wouldn't come out of his lungs. He felt like he was slowly suffocating, and he clamped down on a feeling of dread. Focus, he told himself. His body was completely paralyzed, but there had to be some explanation…

"War?"

It was a voice that Ichigo might have recognized as human, had it not sounded hollow and robotic, like a whisper rasping through tightly bound, unturned harp strings. It had an echo-like property to it, a hollow sounding voice. When the face that owned the voice came into view, the sound it made seemed only too fitting.

The figure that stood before them as a skeleton. A normal looking skeleton, just like any you'd find in a high school science class. Except that it was floating before the three of them, and it was talking to them without the benefit of lungs or a larynx.

"No war…" the voice sounded again as the skeleton's jaw opened and closed in a shallow mockery of speech. "Just…vengeance…"

Ichigo was completely powerless to oppose the creature as it lifted a single, skeletal hand towards his face. It did not glow with the green light of a cero. It just…reached for his face. And somehow, that was so much more terrifying. Ichigo felt the cold, icy grip of fear take hold of him as he knew – somewhere, deep down inside of his soul – that death itself awaited him at the skeleton's touch.

And he couldn't lift a finger to save himself. He couldn't even close his eyes as death approached him.

_Am I…going to die here…?_

But suddenly, the skeleton was not the only thing standing before him.

She was tall, ginger-haired, shapely and busty, wearing simple garments – a long, pink skirt and a pale, cream-colored blouse. She even had on an apron, as if she had rushed out of the house in the middle of cooking dinner. But on her face was a strong, determined and fearless glare that would – and currently was – causing death itself to halt in its tracks.

"Don't touch my husband…"

She had her arm extended forward, the six multicolored crystalline gems of the Six Shielding Flowers orbiting her wrist in a tightly spinning circle. As she held her palm outward towards the skeleton, the six crystals began to spin around her wrist, faster and faster, until they seemed to form a single band around her wrist. There was a high pitch ringing sound as the six gems gathered energy into the palm of her hand, the sound slowly increasing in tone as the energy began to build at a startling rate.

The skeleton recoiled slightly as the sudden enormous swell of reiatsu, but no amount of running could have saved it from the blast that came two milliseconds later.

The sonorous burst of energy that released from her hand to engulf the skeleton in its entirety was larger around than she was tall. It was pure white, a beam of white-hot light that shot up into the sky, lighting up the night, and reaching out well past where the faux-moon had been. If the blast had hit the conglomeration of Hollows, it would have probably been enough to destroy it in a single hit.

As the beam of power receded, the skeleton was nowhere to be seen, and Ichigo felt air rushing into his lungs as suddenly he regained the ability to move. He took in a gasp of air, and suddenly realized that he wasn't out of breath – at least, no more than he'd been before. It all seemed to have been in his head, though as to why, he could not say. It was as if…time itself had stopped.

But currently, Ichigo had more pressing matters to concern himself.

"Orihime…"

The orange haired girl turned about with a billow of her skirt and smiled, heartily at him.

"Ichigo…" she beamed. "I wondered where you'd gotten to when you didn't show up for dinner…"

Ichigo took in another breath. He was still tired from the previous exertion, and still hadn't quite gotten a handle on things. Most of his days, he'd been spending his time processing paperwork, so suddenly having to think in terms of hollows and reiatsu again was a little uncomfortable for him now.

"Ishida-kun!" Orihime suddenly seemed to notice the other two. "Sado-kun! It's so good to see you two! I'm glad you're both alright!"

Ishida and Chad were both recovering from what had just happened both physically, from the exertion, and psychologically, from just having faced a walking skeleton that could paralyze them seemingly at will.

"What…what was that?" Chad asked out loud.

Ichigo wasn't sure if his friend was referring to the reality-defying skeleton, or the massive burst of power Orihime had unleashed upon it. He hadn't seen her get _that_ mad since he'd almost died in the Battle of the Five Planes.

"Thanks, Orihime," Ichigo muttered, sounding sheepish.

She only smiled in return, eyes closed. "Till death do us, part, remember? I'm way too young to be a widow."

Ishida brushed himself off. "My thanks as well, Orihime…Ichigo, do you have any idea what that thing was?"

Ichigo looked at the empty sky above them, where before, an amalgamation of Hollows, as well as a reality-bending skeleton, had stood mere moments ago.

How things had changed in so little time.

"I think-"

"_I_ think," Orihime interrupted. "That dinner is getting cold. Come on you guys – Ishida-kun, Sado-kun, you're both invited. Why don't we all sit down for a hot meal, and then we can figure this all out on full stomachs."

Ichigo seemed to suddenly realize how hungry he was. He forgot how draining fighting in his Gigai-fused body could be. It required a lot more upkeep than his soul ever had, but the advantage to being able to interact with the physical world was worth it, especially in that battle with the Get Backers.

And the insistent expression on his wife's face was highly persuasive. It didn't even begin to suggest that the owner of that smile had enough power to punch holes through mountains, though that fact had not escaped any of them in the least, and made disagreeing with her seem like that much more of a bad idea.

"Yeah," Ichigo smiled, slipping his hand into Orihime's, who squeezed his back vigorously. "Let's go."


End file.
